A Bouquet of Barbed Wire, page 28
51
‘SHE’S LEAVING tomorrow,’ he said to Cassie on the phone. ‘Apparently some old boy-friend has offered her a job in Frankfurt. It’s ironic, isn’t it? Aren’t you amused? I made such a big effort to tell her I was moving out and it turned out she’d been trying to say the same thing. So of course I said never mind about notice or references, I’d fix all that.’
Cassie was silent. He said anxiously after a moment, ‘Cass, are you there?’
‘Yes. I’m here.’
‘Well, what do you think? Can we try again? I truly did tell her before she told me. I knew before I left the nursing-home that it couldn’t go on.’
It’s Prue, she thought. You’re doing this for Prue.
‘I was wrong to be so upset by your letter,’ he said. ‘You were right to tell me everything. It’s the only way it can work, if we’re both totally honest.’
But it’s too late, Cassie thought wildly. I can never be totally honest with you again. I’ve simply exchanged one deceit for another.
‘I really did tell her first,’ he repeated.
Cassie said, ‘I don’t see that it matters who said it first.’
‘Of course it matters. Surely …’ He stopped; she could feel him thinking how to put it. ‘It means I’m not asking you to try again because she’s going. It means I really want to … I really want us all to be a family again.’
You are too honest, she thought, and not honest enough. Prue broke us up and now Prue brings us back together. That’s all.
He said urgently, ‘I don’t think I ever meant to stay away. And now … well, the other night somehow put everything back in perspective. It’s so much more important than who slept with whom—don’t you agree?’
Cassie thought dully, of course he’s right. It’s the only thing to do. Restore the status quo, go on as before, only better, please God. And we do love each other, after all. But he hasn’t said that; he’s said everything else. What’s the matter with me? I’m too old to be dreaming mad dreams. She said, ‘Yes, you’re right.’
He sounded relieved. ‘Take your time, there’s no hurry. I’ll see you tomorrow at the nursing-home, won’t I? We can talk about it then.’
Cassie put down the phone and looked in the mirror. You’re old, she told herself. You have no choice. You’ll never have the strength to go on saying no if you’re alone. But you won’t be alone. People don’t break up marriages like this. It’s too trivial. Marriage and children and stability. That’s what counts. Continuity. Family life. Not the insanity of believing you can fashion the future out of a scrap of the past.
52
‘WELL, SEE you in a couple of days then.’ Geoff was angry that she was not going with him.
‘Yes, of course. It’s all fixed.’ She smiled to soften him.
‘Pity you couldn’t fix it sooner. You know how I feel about flying alone.’
‘Yes, I know. I’m sorry. But I’ve got packing to do and people to tell.’
‘Like parents.’ He laughed. ‘Well, if yours are anything like mine, which I suspect they are from the way you don’t talk about them, get out first, tell them later. The same goes for him. Don’t let him change your mind.’
‘He won’t. I’ve told you. He’s going back to his wife. Well his daughter really. He’s doing what she wants.’
Geoff smiled. ‘Yes, and he’d have done it anyway. Have you thought about that? If I’d never come back he’d have still left you flat.’
She was shocked by the truth of his hard commonsense, yet also relieved that there was someone around to be tough. Perversely it strengthened her confidence in him. She thought that perhaps the people she wanted were not and never could be the people she needed: they were too much like herself. Together they would all sink in a terrifying swamp of emotion. So her mother and Barbara were right, she had been looking all along for security, not love? Or were they the same thing, and the rest just human weakness?
‘So stop feeling guilty,’ Geoff went on. ‘You did them all a favour. They’ve all survived, they’re all older and wiser and no harm done. You’re the one who could have got hurt.’
‘Oh no.’ She smiled. ‘I’m tough.’
He shook his head. ‘I don’t think you are. I’m a lot tougher than you and even I don’t feel tough. It’s a jungle, Sarah. Everyone grabs for themselves. No one cares, we’re all out there alone. I want to hold your hand when the hyenas start howling. Don’t you want to hold mine?’
She hesitated, feeling an enormous weight of disloyalty. ‘Yes’. She could not explain why it felt so wrong: not just leaving Manson (even though he had suggested it) but joining Geoff, offering her parents and Barbara such hideous satisfaction in his money, his looks, his car. He was just what they wanted for her. She thought, If I go away with you we’ll maybe live together, perhaps even get married, but what will that prove? Just that we’re scared, both of us. It won’t change anything. The next time I meet someone in need I’ll be off, with a sense of vocation, and I’ll live to regret it, again. She felt exhausted, defeated, by the impossibility of trying to change human nature.
He said, laughing, ‘Who knows, we may even get married,’ and her heart rose and sank as she thought, God, I knew it. Yet when his flight was called she kissed him good-bye with real affection and a surge of panic that if anything happened to him she would not know, as they said, where to turn. Going back to the office for her last half-day, she felt her spirits lift, in spite of the lunch hour traffic. (Manson had kindly allowed her the morning off.) The sun had come out, the car moved like music, and the next plane she saw would be hers. Geoff was right: they had all emerged unscathed and she ought to give thanks. She stopped for lunch then drove on, a little braced for farewells but otherwise calm and relaxed until she reached the door of her office, finding not Manson but Rupert, who informed her with clinical precision, despite reddened eyes, that Prue had collapsed that morning with a pulmonary embolism, and died within hours.
53
‘RUPERT TOLD me,’ she said when he phoned.
‘Yes.’
‘I can’t believe it … she was so well.’ She understood now about wanting to beat your head against a wall. ‘Oh God, poor you, oh God, how will you bear it?’
‘It’s not real,’ he answered after a long time. ‘I’ve … seen her and I don’t believe it. It makes nonsense of everything.’
‘Can I … do anything? Shall I stay? Is there anything …’
‘No.’ He relapsed into silence. Only his breathing assured her he was still there.
‘I’m so sorry.’ Useless, inadequate words. He didn’t answer. She cast around in her dazed mind for something to comfort, anything to maintain contact: found herself instead suddenly and childishly helpless, kicking at fate. ‘It’s not fair, we’d split up, we’d done the right thing,’ as if Prue had died out of sheer perversity and broken her side of the bargain. ‘Oh God, it’s not fair.’
‘I know.’ He was silent for a long time until finally with a great effort he produced the words, ‘I loved her so much,’ and began to weep.
* * *
‘It’s like a judgment on me.’ Cassie sat quite still and dry-eyed.
Gavin, now calm after becoming hysterical at the nursing-home, said, ‘You mean on both of us.’
‘No. I was her mother. That makes me responsible.’
‘I don’t accept that.’
‘That doesn’t matter. It’s how I see it.’
‘Then how d’you think I feel about beating her up? You can’t share my guilt for that. If I hadn’t done that maybe she’d be alive …’ He choked.
‘No. They told you, they assured you it had nothing to do with that. You’ve got to believe them.’ She wanted to comfort him but all she could think was, over and over again, This morning I had a daughter. This morning Prue was alive.
‘Oh yes.’ He faintly smiled, with irony. ‘The same way you believe me when I tell you that sleeping with me wasn’t a crime so this isn’t a punishment. Oh yes.’
Cassie said after a long pause. ‘We’ve got to help each other. I don’t think I can bear it alone.’
‘You won’t be alone, you’ll have him. I shall have no one. It serves me right.’
‘I meant we must all help each other.’
Gavin put his head in his hands. ‘I loved her, I really did. Do you believe me?’
* * *
Manson came back from the phone, looking old and red-eyed and ill. ‘Where is he?’
‘Being sick, I think.’ She poured further drinks without asking. ‘How’s Sarah?’
‘Very shocked.’
‘Yes, of course. Did she know?’
‘Rupert told her.’
‘Oh yes.’ Cassie lit a cigarette and passed him the packet. ‘Is she still going away?’
‘She offered to stay, I said no.’ He sat hunched in his chair, a sudden old man, reminding Cassie of her father at her mother’s bedside. ‘There’s nothing … I mean it’s a family matter now.’
‘Poor Sarah.’
‘You were always forgiving.’
‘Oh, that. I just meant it must be terrible for her to feel involved and yet be excluded. And … she’s only a child really.’ She thought of the boy upstairs, younger even than Sarah, being sick because he had loved his wife and now she was dead. She envied him his emotion: she herself was totally numb, her feelings locked away, fastened down, like somebody screaming behind sound-proof glass. ‘We’ve all got to help each other, Peter. I can’t bear it if we don’t.’ He put his arm round her but she still could not cry. Gavin came back in the room, ghastly white, and she got up. ‘I’ll make some tea.’
* * *
He could find nothing to say to Gavin. Alone with him for the first time in months, and at such a time, he knew with certainty that now was the moment for words, for reconciliation, for all Prue had wanted and all he had intended to do for her. It would be his last gift. But the words would not come, nor could he stretch out his hand. Despite his own guilt and remorse the one festering thought remained and would not be quelled. My daughter would be alive if she’d never met you. But for you, Prue would be alive.
54
GEOFF WAS waiting just beyond Customs. He flung his arms round her and hugged her, then stood back for inspection. ‘You look good,’ he said. ‘I’ve missed you. God, I really have.’
Sarah was numb with travel and the strangeness of the airport and the language all around her. On the plane grief for Prue had combined with the guilty past and the uncertain future to create quite unreal isolation, and a selfish terror that shamed her. She said stiffly, ‘What about the girl who thinks you’re going to marry her?’
‘Oh, that.’ He seized her suitcases. ‘Oh, I’ve got out of that. Come on. I’ve got a car waiting.’
There was a driver in the car to whom he gave orders in his business voice, rather brusque. Then he slid back the partition and put his arm round her.
‘I’ve got you a room,’ he said. ‘It’s nice and quite cheap. And not far from my flat, so you’ll be independent but accessible. How’s that? Of course you can look around for yourself if you’d rather.’
Sarah said faintly, ‘Is it worth it for such a short time?’
‘Oh.’ He glanced at her sideways. ‘I forgot to tell you. Dad phoned. I’ll be here for six months at least. Maybe even a year. Be worth bringing the car over perhaps.’
She wondered if he had rigged it, and could not ask. The lights of this strange foreign city that was to be her home flashed across their faces in the dark of the car. She looked at him (stranger, friend?) and wondered if he was an end in himself, the answer, or merely a stepping-stone to something as yet unknown. She did not even know which she hoped he would be.
She said, ‘Geoff, I’m scared.’
‘Yes, I know, so am I. Hold my hand.’
She took hold of it, hard. ‘Let me tell you what happened.’
55
THE FUNERAL was unspeakable. Afterwards, numb with the obscenity of necessary ritual, the three of them gathered again at the house. They had scarcely been apart for three days, three days of tears and disconnected speech, alcohol, arrangements, and silence. Despite the mourners, even those close and genuine in their grief, like Rupert, they felt isolated together, set apart. They had decided to spare Cassie’s parents and the twins such an ordeal, so there remained just the three of them, enclosed in their separate loss. The letter, which they had found when Gavin went through Prue’s handbag, echoed in Manson’s head, setting out her life apart from him, a whole new dimension. He had tried so hard to hang on to her and she had released herself, perhaps in the only way possible. And yet the baby remained, a part of her, thriving, and biding her time to come to them.
Gavin, looking white and ill, vanished into the bathroom, leaving Manson and Cassie alone. They chain-smoked in silence. He found himself searching her face for signs of Prue, as he had even searched the baby’s as she lay incredibly small in her incubator, because it seemed unbearable that he could no longer physically see his daughter. The image of her cold, dead face battled with memories of her living one, animated or sulky or serene, became confused with the cherished marble of his mother. He shook his head as if to clear the picture.
Cassie said, ‘Are you all right?’
‘I can’t see her properly.’ He put his head in his hand and began to weep.
‘I know.’ She touched him lightly on the shoulder. ‘I can’t either. But we will.’
‘It’s … such a waste.’ He tried to stop weeping: it was unfair to solicit sympathy and force Cassie to be strong. Her calm frightened him: he wondered what storms would break later.
‘Try to think of the letter. It was a happy letter.’
‘I didn’t understand it.’ But it had only confirmed that Prue, while resembling him (though he could no longer see any trace of her in the mirror) was Cassie’s child inside. ‘I suppose you did.’ He was envious.
‘Up to a point. Yes.’
He blew his nose, poured another drink. Cassie, smoking furiously, had hardly touched hers. ‘I wonder what she wrote to him.’ The exclusion had tortured him even while he saw it as just. ‘Where is he, by the way?’
‘I think he’s being sick again. Poor Gavin.’ It was like her to have sympathy for everyone, Manson thought bitterly. ‘He really loved her, you know.’
‘In his way I suppose he did.’
‘Oh, Peter. Be generous.’
Defensively he changed the subject. ‘Do you think we should have let your parents come?’
‘No. It would have been too much for them.’ She looked vaguely surprised. ‘I thought we agreed all that.’
‘Yes.’ But he had felt a sudden pang of isolation, a longing to gather the clan, however pathetically small. ‘And the boys.’
‘Oh, they’d have been so upset.’ She shook her head. ‘No. It was something for the three of us. Surely.’
‘I suppose you’re right.’ He lit another cigarette, hesitated, braved himself. It had to be said. ‘Cass, what do you want to do?’
There was a long silence. Then: ‘Well, I shall be here with the baby, when she comes out.’
‘Do you want me back?’ It sounded crude, abrupt: aggressive even.
‘If you want to come.’
‘I …’ He stopped and cleared his throat, embarrassed, at a loss. ‘I do want to come but … I don’t know if I can. I’m no help, I can’t comfort you. I ought to be able to, I want to, but … these last few days, and now, all I want is to be alone. I want to be with her, hang on … I can’t let her go. It … doesn’t seem to be something I can share.’
She touched his hand. ‘I know. Don’t worry about it. Whenever you’re ready, I’m here. But Gavin will have to visit the baby. Can you stand that, d’you think? I mean later, eventually. There’s no way round that.’
He shook his head. ‘I don’t know. Not yet. It’s too much. You and the baby and Gavin. It’s too soon.’
Cassie said softly, ‘She’s very like Prue.’
‘Is she? I can’t see it yet, I wish to God I could. I just see him when I look at her.’
‘You mustn’t go on hating him, you know. Or nothing will work.’
‘I know. I just …’ But the words wouldn’t come. Deadlock.
‘He was what she wanted. I think that’s why I can’t cry. She had what she wanted. Many people never have that, in a whole lifetime.’
‘Including you.’ The bitterness was too strong for him; it forced its way out.
‘Including both of us.’ She was so forthright she terrified him. ‘The sooner we face that the better our chances.’
He didn’t answer; he did not want to face the implications. There were footsteps on the stairs and Gavin came back in the room. He was so white that he had clearly been sick. He paced about, refusing drinks, coffee, cigarettes, sat down abruptly on the sofa facing them and said, ‘Look. I’ve got to say this. It may not be the moment but I can’t put it off. You’re not … I mean I appreciate what you’re going to do, about Eve, I know I can’t cope on my own, with school and all, I wish to God I could, I even thought of quitting but that’s stupid, of course, only … well, I do have to say this.’ And stopped.
Cassie said gently, ‘It’s all right, go on. She’s your daughter.’ And Manson’s heart turned over at the words.
‘Cassandra.’ He clasped bony hands between his knees, frowned, unclasped them, waved them in helpless emphasis. ‘I’m not … I’m not accusing you. Or you, sir—’ turning to Manson. ‘I mean, I don’t know what your plans are, if you’ll be around or not. But I have to say … I just can’t let you bring up Eve like Prue. She’s my daughter and I don’t want her all mixed up and crazy. I don’t mean you did anything bad but whatever you did—oh, I guess you meant well, I mean I know you did—we all know how she turned out and I don’t want that for Eve. She’ll never be happy that way. I want her to be simple and normal and happy. No hang-ups.’
